THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) -- Police in northern Greece have rescued 54 migrants found squashed into a van, and arrested two Bulgarian alleged members of a smuggling ring paid to carry them through the country.

A police statement says the van was stopped Wednesday on a road in the northeastern Rodopi province. It said the 52 Syrian and 2 Somali nationals - including 13 minors - were crammed into the 4-by-2.5-meter (13-by-8-foot) back of the van, which lacked ventilation and was locked from the outside. The two Bulgarians, aged 36 and 38, were charged with illegally transporting migrants and endangering lives.

Police said Thursday that each of the adults had paid 1,500 euros ($1,700) to be taken from Greece's land border with Turkey, which they had crossed illegally, to the northern city of Thessaloniki.

3 dead, several missing as boat with migrants sinks off Greece By DEREK GATOPOULOS and SUZAN FRAZER3 November 2017

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Authorities in Greece and Turkey say at least three people have died and several more are believed to be missing after a boat carrying migrants from Turkey sank off the Greek island of Kalymnos.

The Greek coast guard said 15 people were rescued and one body was recovered after the wooden boat sank in mild weather conditions before dawn Friday. Two other bodies believed to be from the same vessel were found by the Turkish coast guard. A search for the missing migrants continued in Greek waters.

Greece has seen a spike in arrivals of migrants and refugees in recent months - rising to an average rate of 200 per day, according to the government. In two other incidents early Friday, 127 people were rescued from boats in distress near the Greek island of Chios.

Greece's government says an agreement last year between the European Union and Turkey to combat migrant trafficking is not in danger of collapsing, despite a strain in relations between the EU and Ankara. Migrants who arrived on Greek islands after that agreement took effect in March 2016 are not allowed to travel to the mainland before their asylum claim has been examined - causing serious overcrowding at government-run camps. "What's happening is that the EU-Turkey deal is only being half implemented, because the part that involves migrants being returned to Turkey is not happening," Chios Mayor Michalis Vournous told a parliamentary committee briefing in Athens on Thursday.

Vournous and other Greek island mayors said the government and the EU have delayed promised assistance to deal with the rising numbers of migrants. "The situation must be alleviated on the islands for the sake of the local economy and local society. Island life needs to return to normal," he said.

Turkey's coast guard said the migrants were stopped Friday afternoon while travelling in a fishing boat south of the Dardanelles in western Turkey. The coast guard says the passengers included 110 Syrians, 179 Pakistanis and Afghan, Indian, Sri Lankan, Somali and Iranian nationals. It says seven Turkish and two Belarusian nationals who are thought to be migrant smugglers also were on board.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 857,000 migrants reached Greece from Turkey in 2015. A March 2016 deal between Turkey and the European Union dramatically reduced the number of people attempting the trip. More than 3.2 million Syrians who fled their country's civil war have ended up in Turkey.

Italian prosecutors are investigating the deaths of 26 Nigerian women - most of them teenagers - whose bodies were recovered at sea.

There are suspicions that they may have been sexually abused and murdered as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean. Five migrants are being questioned in the southern port of Salerno.

A Spanish warship, Cantabria, docked there carrying 375 migrants and the dead women, following several rescues. Twenty-three of the dead women had been on a rubber boat with 64 other people. Italian media report that the women's bodies are being kept in a refrigerated section of the warship. Most of them were aged 14-18.

Most of the 375 survivors brought to Salerno were sub-Saharan Africans, from Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, The Gambia and Sudan, the daily La Repubblica reports. Among them were 90 women - eight of them pregnant - and 52 children. There were also some Libyan men and women on board.

People-smuggling gangs charge each migrant about $6,000 (£4,578) to get to Italy, $4,000 of which is for the trans-Saharan journey to Libya, according to the Italian aid group L'Abbraccio. Many migrants have reported violence, including torture and sexual abuse, by the gangs.

In the year to 1 November, 150,982 migrants arrived in southern Europe by boat from North Africa, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports. Of them, 111,552 (nearly 75%) came via the Central Mediterranean route to Italy. The number who died on that route was 2,639, the IOM says.

The others arrived in Greece, Cyprus or Spain. The total is less than half the 335,158 who arrived in the same period of 2016. Last year the total for Greece was higher than that for Italy.

BARCELONA (AFP) - Spanish authorities said they rescued over 250 migrants, including children, on Saturday who were making the perilous Mediterranean crossing to Europe.

"We saved 251 people from five improvised vessels all in the Alboran Sea," Spain's maritime safety authorities said on Twitter, referring to the westernmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea.

The number of migrants arriving by sea on Spanish shores has soared over last year, with the figure nearly tripling to 15,585 in 2017 by November 8, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Many Africans undertaking the long route to Europe are choosing to avoid crossing danger-ridden Libya to get to Italy along the so-called central Mediterranean route, and choosing instead to get there via Morocco and Spain. However, Spain is still well behind Italy, which has recorded some 114,400 arrivals by sea since since the start of the year. Since January nearly 15,600 migrants have made it to Spain by sea, with 156 dying during the crossing, according to the IOM.

The agency estimates that some 155,850 migrants have made the dangerous crossing to Europe this year and another 2,961 died or went missing while trying.

Greek police block migrants' march to border with Macedonia By COSTAS KANTOURIS15 November 2017

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) -- Police blocked some 200 migrants and asylum-seekers Wednesday from leaving a city in northern Greece for the Macedonian border in hopes of traveling on to other European Union countries.

Dozens of officers in riot gear used shields to push back the migrants near the center of Thessaloniki and blocked the road with police buses. The marchers, who included families with young children, refused to leave and sat down in the street. No one was hurt in the brief confrontation. The migrants, most of them from Syria, Iraq and Somalia, had gathered throughout the day in Thessaloniki. Many said they were responding to a campaign on social media for a march to the Greece-Macedonia border to protest their inability to relocate to other European countries. "I have no reason to stay here," Ahmed Mohammed, an asylum-seeker from Syria, told The Associated Press. "I've been here for six months, first on (the island of) Chios and then I went to Athens. I can't work. I can't do anything."

More than 60,000 migrants and refugees who first arrived in Greece remain stranded in the country. Some countries have strengthened their borders to prevent immigrants from arriving illegally, while others have refused to take in asylum-seekers under an EU distribution plan. The people who gathered in Thessaloniki said they had intended to walk some 70 kilometers (45 miles) north to the border town of Idomeni, where a huge refugee camp sprung up and was cleared last year after Balkan countries closed off a popular route to the European Union.

Greek officials have conceded that a European Union agreement with Turkey to prevent refugees and migrants from trying to reach Europe has reduced the number of people attempting the trip, but say provisions to return those who made it to Greek islands to Turkey face major delays. Yiannis Balafas, a Greek deputy minister for migration, visited Thessaloniki Wednesday to promote a voluntary deportation program that would see migrants returned to their home countries. "Greece has transformed from a transit country for migrants to one that traps them," Balafas said. "That's why a voluntary return program could be so helpful."

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) -- Romania's coastguard on Tuesday rescued 66 migrants, including dozens of children, aboard a Turkish ship on the Black Sea after the vessel issued a distress signal.

A statement said the ship reported engine trouble early Tuesday as it was being battered by high winds in rough waters some 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Black Sea coast, and asked Romanian authorities and a commercial ship in the area for help. The coastguard dispatched two ships to the area and escorted the vessel to the Black Sea port of Constanta.

The migrants, comprising 31 men, 11 women and 24 children, are from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and were trying to illegally enter Romania. Some were given medical treatment. Border police are investigating the incident. The migrants will be placed in refugee centers. Migration to Romania has increased this year as other routes into Europe have closed.

4 die as car crammed with migrants dives off cliff in Greece29 November 2017

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) -- Four people died during a police chase in northern Greece when an overcrowded smuggler's car carrying eight migrants, including two in the trunk, plunged off a 90-foot cliff, authorities said Wednesday.

Health officials said the other four migrants and the Pakistani driver of the car were injured in the accident late Tuesday near the town of Kavala, east of Thessaloniki. Kavala hospital director Anastassios Karassavoglou told the Associated Press that one man was in intensive care with multiple bone fractures, while the other four were in relatively good condition.

Police said the accident occurred when the driver ignored police orders to stop on a highway, turned onto a smaller road and lost control of the vehicle. One of those in the trunk died. The names and nationalities of the migrants were not immediately known.

The 35-year-old driver faces multiple manslaughter and human trafficking charges. The car was carrying the migrants west from the Turkish border, which they had crossed illegally.

In a similar incident late Tuesday in the same area, police arrested a 19-year-old Pakistani who was allegedly driving a car with another seven people on board from the Turkish border area to Thessaloniki. Police said the suspect drove through a police highway checkpoint and was eventually stopped on a secondary road. The car was carrying five Pakistani migrants, an Afghan and an alleged accomplice of the driver who managed to escape. The migrants had allegedly paid 2,100 euros ($2,500) each to be taken to Thessaloniki.

Despite a series of Balkan border closures and a deal between the European Union and Turkey in early 2016 to restrict the unchecked flow of migrants through Greece to Europe's prosperous heartland, thousands still cross from Turkey to the Greek islands in smuggling boats. Nearly 16,000 are stuck on Greece's eastern Aegean Sea islands in camps that human rights groups have repeatedly criticized as overcrowded and lacking in proper housing facilities.

Hundreds of West African migrants return home from Libya By SAM OLUKOYA8 December 2017

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Hundreds of West African migrants who had been stranded in Libya are returning home as worried governments repatriate them amid outrage over slave auctions.

Another 164 migrants returned to Nigeria early Friday, the latest group to be repatriated with help from the European Union and the International Organization for Migration. The first 504 migrants from neighboring Niger, including children, returned home Wednesday, part of an expected mass voluntary evacuation of 3,850 over the coming days, the U.N. migration agency said.

The African Union aims to return 20,000 migrants from Libya over the next six weeks after international condemnation of slave auctions in Libya revealed by recent CNN footage. Between 400,000 and 700,000 migrants are thought to be in more than 40 detention camps across the chaotic north African country, often under inhumane conditions, the AU Commission chairman has said.

Europe has struggled to stem the flow of tens of thousands of Africans making the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean. But many Africans still make the journey, risking death and abuse, saying pressure that include high unemployment and climate change leave them little choice.

African and European leaders last week drew up an emergency evacuation plan for migrants, agreeing to airlift at least 3,800 stranded in detention centers across Libya. Several West African nations including Gambia, Cameroon and Ivory Coast have begun bringing their citizens home. A flight with 167 migrants, including seven children, returned to Guinea on Thursday, the U.N. migration agency said. Some of them reported beatings while in detention centers in Libya. "I spent three months in prison. I do not know the name because we never went out, only for beating sessions because I did not have money," one of the migrants told the U.N. agency. "I have a lot of pain in my upper body."

Organizations including Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders have criticized Europe, saying its primary aim is to close the often deadly smuggling route across the Mediterranean and leave hundreds of thousands of migrants trapped in Libya and at risk of horrific abuses.

Hundreds of migrants out in open along Serbia's EU borders By IVANA BZGANOVIC18 December 2017

SID, Serbia (AP) -- Several hundred migrants were camping along Serbia's borders on Monday, sleeping rough in make-shift shelters from the cold as they look for a chance to cross into neighboring European Union countries.

Amid biting wind and freezing temperatures, the migrants huddled around small fires in an abandoned factory near Croatia's border, as aid groups distributed food and warm drinks. "These people continue to stay outside in very inhumane and unsafe conditions.... There is no clear access to water or sanitation facilities," said Andrea Contenta, a humanitarian affairs adviser in Serbia for Doctors Without Borders.

Contenta added that while officials have closed off the so-called Balkan route - leading from Turkey to Greece or Bulgaria, and on to Macedonia and Serbia - migrants still use it to cross illegally and face dangers. "We cannot continue to say that the Balkan route is closed," he insisted. "We have to acknowledge that people are still (moving) along the Balkans, and we need to find the way to avoid," putting them at risk.

Though numbers of migrants in the Balkans have been reduced, Serbian officials said about 300 to 400 people have been staying out in the open, along with some 4,000 who are in asylum centers hoping to move on to wealthier European countries. Thousands of people have been stranded since the March 2016 closure of the Balkan route.

Many migrants have since tried repeatedly to cross the borders with Croatia or Hungary, but have been pushed back to Serbia by police in those countries or have been stopped by a barbed-wire fence at Hungary's border. Forced to cross the borders illegally in most cases, migrants have turned to smugglers to guide them across.

Wrapped in woolen blankets, caps and shawls, some of the migrants camping on Monday held their feet above the fire to keep warm. Others tried to wash mud off their shoes as aid workers brought water to the make-shift shelter. Ahmed Alloui, 20, from Algeria, said "there is bad life" back home and he wants to find a peaceful country where he can have a future. "We are looking for better life," he said.

MADRID (AFP) - More than 200 African migrants stormed over a high double fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla on Saturday, officials said, leaving some of them and a police officer injured.

A total of 209 people from sub-Saharan Africa seeking to get to Europe forced their way across the fence in the afternoon, the central government's representative office in Melilla said in a statement. The police officer who was injured was "attacked by an immigrant with one of the hooks they use to clamber up the fence" as he tried to stop them, the statement said, adding the implement cut his earlobe. In order to get across, migrants often use hooks and shoes studded with nails.

Four of the migrants, meanwhile, were sent to hospital for minor injuries, it added. Mobile phone footage broadcast by Spanish media showed a group of migrants running through the streets of the city. They have since been taken to a migrant detention centre.

The barrier is composed of two six-metre-high (20-feet-high) fences, with criss-crossing steel cables in between. Melilla and Ceuta, another Spanish enclave nearly 400 kilometres (250 miles) away on the north coast of Africa, are often used as entry points into Europe for African migrants. They have the only two land borders between Africa and the European Union. Over the years, thousands of migrants have attempted to cross the 12-kilometre (7.5 mile) frontier between Melilla and Morocco, or the eight-kilometre border at Ceuta, by climbing the border fences, swimming along the coast or hiding in vehicles.

Spain is increasingly targeted by people desperate to reach Europe from Africa, with the number of migrants reaching the country in 2017 hitting a record high of nearly 22,900, according to EU border agency Frontex. This was more than double the previous record set in 2016.

The truck was inspected outside the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki Friday morning, police announced Saturday. Police arrested the truck driver, a 55-year-old Greek man.

The migrants included 21 minors, police said, with more than 60 Iraqis and others from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Congo and Iran. They had crossed from Turkey, having paid 1,800 euros ($2,100) each to be transported to Athens, police said.

In a separate incident close to Greece's border with Turkey, police arrested a 39-year-old Syrian national who was carrying ten migrants, nine Syrians and one Iraqi in his passenger car, police said.

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